Featured photos

Canada got the last hurrah at the Celebration of Light Saturday evening, closing the three-night event with a winning display. Canada was declared the winner of the event, with Brazil and China finishing second and third, respectively.

B.C. home to second-largest foreign-born population in Canada

Immigrants listen to the judge speak during a Canadian citizenship ceremony at the Daniels Spectrum in Toronto on Tuesday, October 16, 2012.

Photograph by: (Matthew Sherwood for National Post)
, Postmedia News

British Columbia is home to the second largest foreign-born population in Canada, an ethnocultural nation where one in five citizens are immigrants.

The data was released Wednesday by Statistics Canada based on a National Household Survey conducted in 2011. But the voluntary survey, which replaced the mandatory long-form census, is controversial because some say there are gaps in the data from groups that tend not to respond to voluntary surveys, including aboriginals, new immigrants and low-income families.

In 2011, the survey data show the vast majority — 94.8 per cent — of Canada’s foreign-born population lived in Ontario, B.C., Quebec and Alberta.

B.C. had the second largest number of people born outside the country, with 1,191,900 immigrants (or 17.6 per cent), after Ontario, with 3,611,400 immigrants (or 53.3 per cent.)

Most immigrants in B.C. lived in Metro Vancouver and were mainly from Asia, accounting for 40 per cent of the region’s total population, up only slightly from 39.6 per cent since the last census in 2006.

It shows municipalities surrounding Vancouver continue to grow more ethnically diverse. In Richmond, 70 per cent of residents reported being a visible minority, as did more than half in Burnaby (59.5 per cent,) Surrey (53 per cent) and Vancouver (52 per cent).

Your browser does not support iframes.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Of all the metropolitan areas in Canada, Vancouver had the highest number of Chinese immigrants (18 per cent) and Korean (2.1 per cent). Abbotsford-Mission had the most South Asians at 19 per cent, while Toronto is second at 15 per cent and Vancouver was third at 11 per cent.

However, since the last census, the province saw a marginal decline in new immigrants, or those who came to Canada between 2006 and 2011, as the number of newcomers increasingly chose to live in other provinces to live such as Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Vancouver received more than 155,100 newcomers, representing 6.8 per cent of the population. Kelowna gained 3,150 new immigrants while 5,935 settled in the Abbotsford-Mission region.

On the question of religion, the data show B.C. has the fewest Christians of any province or territory (44.6 per cent) and the highest number of Sikhs. And, along with the Yukon, it is the only place in Canada where less than half the population is Christian.

B.C. is also the second most non-praying province, with 41.1 per cent saying they have no religious affiliation after Yukon at 49.9 per cent.

Among the G8 countries, Canada had the highest proportion of foreign-born population (20.6 per cent), followed by Germany (13 per cent) and the United States (12.9 per cent).

In total, 1.2 million immigrants came to Canada between 2006 and 2011.

Most are settling in the nation’s big cities — Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver — but other cities such as Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Regina and Ottawa are also seeing their cultural milieu changed by a rising tide of immigration.

During the recent five-year period, the largest share of immigrants to Canada (56.9 per cent) came from Asia and the Middle East — compared to how just 8.5 per cent of immigrants to Canada before 1970 came from that region.

All the while, Canada is experiencing mixed changes on religion. Nearly one-quarter of Canadians (23.9 per cent) had no religious affiliation last year, up from 15 per cent a decade earlier.

That’s not to say that religion is dead in Canada. About 22.1 million Canadians (67.3 per cent of the population) are Christians. Roman Catholics are the largest of that group, with 12.7 million Canadians (38.7 per cent) saying they are Catholics.

However, because of immigration patterns, other religions are slowly taking root. Last year, 2.4 million Canadians (7.2 per cent) were either Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist — up from 4.9 per cent a decade earlier.

Visible minorities occupy a solid place in our society — 19.1 per cent, compared to 16.2 per cent in 2006.

And as our First Nations people continue to struggle for more prosperity, the data reveal a large proportion of Canada’s aboriginals are young people (28 per cent are under the age of 15) — and that many of them are losing their native language and living in lone-parent families or foster care.

Doug Norris, a former senior census official at Statistics Canada who is now chief demographer at Environics Analytics, said in an interview Canada is on track to become a more ethnically diverse country.

He said the shift could impact culture and consumer spending patterns, as children from immigrant families embrace sports such as soccer instead of Canada’s beloved hockey, and as grocery stores restock their shelves with new foods sought by immigrants.

It could even raise key questions about societal tolerance for religious faiths at a time of global tension.

“It’s the age-old question that people raise about living together,” said Norris.

“You see some people come together and embrace diversity, particularly young people, as opposed to an older generation who didn’t grow up seeing these cultures. It’s still foreign to them.

“So we are going to change. People have different reactions to the change. Some adapt better than others.”

Wednesday’s survey was the first of three scheduled reports. The other two are expected to be released on June 26 and August 14.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.